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Pentagon Aims To Buy Up Book
jamie writes "Operation Dark Heart, a book about the adventures and frustrations of an Army officer who served in Afghanistan, has ruffled some feathers at the Pentagon. From the article: 'The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing — 10,000 copies — of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources."
Your tax dollars at work...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I think our government should just abolish the first amendment. They clearly don't believe in it. This just makes me so sick. Where is wikileaks when you need them?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Maybe he should also publish a Kindle version. The author could really clean up then.
They're buying the damned book themselves, paying cash for it. It's not really censorship if they, instead of banning it, go through entirely legal channels to simply purchase every copy of it, is it?
It is when they are requiring that any additional print runs be redacted, which is the case here.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I think at the point that they are using any resources (yours or their own) to make some determination as to what you can/cannot read. That is censorship.
The blurb is intentionally misleading here. The govt gave the OK for the book but then upon a later review they were worried about some names released and a 2nd printing has already been agreed upon by both parties. They are just deciding what to do with 10k books that were already printed. Obviously the publisher spent money to already print them so they aren't going to just destroy them.
They sent out their minions to buy up Hubbard books in order to artificially push them into the charts.
Maybe the Pentagon is trying something similar here? ;)
I realize you're just posting to spam your link, however if you look at the article it answers your question.
It was initially cleared for printing by the military. A different military organization later took a look at the book and had some objections. The author appears to have edited newer editions of his book to comply with what the military wanted (changing names I think) however the first 10,000 books were already printed.
The military now wants to buy the first edition out so that people will only be able to buy the newer, revised editions.
But when the first printing sells out, the publisher is only going to print more. Clearly this is a scam to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of this "former officer", paying a hefty fee to the publisher to launder the dough.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
1. write a book about a subject
2. the subject must be something that someone or some organization wants to cover up
3. the said someone or organization buys all your copies in order to cover up the subject
4. profit!
...Clearly this is a scam to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of this "former officer", paying a hefty fee to the publisher to launder the dough.
How and where, exactly, is this made "clear"?
Oh. You were joking? Silly me for missing the sarcasm. In that case, it's not the least bit funny. This action by our nation's military is deeply troubling. No matter how you figure who is writing the check, that the military is attempting to suppress information that the public has a right to see is frightening in it's implications.
Also, there's already a perfectly working package that does that.
http://www.cccp-project.net/
Hey! We're down to one unwinnable war, and one unwinnable non-combat presence...
presumably you'd have to do a denial of service? This is an argument for eBooks that I hadn't considered before....
From wikipedia:
"Censorship is the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body."
This clearly qualifies as censorship. It doesn't matter how the suppression of information is achieved, as long as information is being suppressed intentionally because of its content, it is censorship.
And, regardless of how you define this (censorship or otherwise), it certainly is still wrong.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The government cannot censor material before it is printed by regular people. But if you worked for the government and write about intelligence you learned while there, then the government can review it and "suggest" redactions before it is printed.
That's what happened here, it's just they printed 10,000 copies that were insufficiently redacted, so those will be destroyed, the company compensated and then more copies with the proper redactions printed. As to the jokers making comments about digital copies, those would be destroyed and no one compensated, because the "buying up books" here isn't to get them off the market, they won't be going to market anyway. It's just to compensate for expenses of printing books they cannot now put on shelves as-is.
This is censorship, because it is the government restricting speech. But is is a special case of info from a government employee, and that is allowed under the law, whether you agree with it or not. It has been this way for some time, I used to have a paperback from the early 70s that advertised the government went to court to stop its publication because the author worked for the CIA before. That book was eventually published with some redactions as this one will too.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
But when the first printing sells out, the publisher is only going to print more.
Did you even RTFA? Let me sum up since you seem to be too lazy:
The first run was printed after the author received permission from the Army Reserve. The Pentagon got wind of it after the first printing and discovered that there was a lot of material that shouldn't have been printed in the first place. The publisher and author then worked with the Pentagon to redact the questionable material, but that left the publisher with 10000 books sitting in a warehouse that can't be sold.
Since the Army Reserve is really the unit that screwed up in this case by not sending the manuscript up the chain for higher level review, the responsibility for paying for all those books rests with the DoD in general. It's actually the honourable thing to do in this case - along with firing whoever signed off on it in the Reserve component.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
I fail and read the article. The book will still be publicly available after things like specific names and other sensitive bits of information get sanitized. By not doing so, lives and missions are placed in jeopardy with little real benefit for society. The publisher will be releasing the book for the public, but the DOD is compensating them for the loss they'd incur from not being able to sell the original printed products.
Does the public have the right to all the information? Sure, in time. There are procedures under the Freedom of Information Act to get it later on, like when revealing it will cause minimal damage (and probably just PR damage). Demanding to know it right now just because of curiosity? Would you like identifying information to be posted on 4chan? There are many "reasonable and normal" people out there who would react in the same way as them.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
"I think at the point that they are using any resources (yours or their own) to make some determination as to what you can/cannot read. That is censorship."
So is security classification. Perhaps we should not have any such, and trust everyone with everything. Surely the world will embrace our example and instantly do likewise.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
For all the people say "LOL they'll just print more" or "OMG censorship is bad!" here are the relevant parts of the story:
"[T]he Defense Intelligence Agency objected to the use of the names of American intelligence officers, among other issues." and "A new print run, without the disputed passages, is being prepared by the publisher."
This compromise is reasonable and legal. We still get the story but the intelligence officers names won't be published.
It's actually the honourable thing to do in this case - along with firing whoever signed off on it in the Reserve component.
Once you accept that "a lot of material that shouldn't have been printed in the first place" indeed shouldn't have been printed, sure.
However, it's still censorship. The only question is whether we approve of it.
It'll never end...
The real destruction of the constitution started in 1798 with the Alien and Sedition Acts. Some might even say the Whiskey tax of 1791 was a breach.. Either way the path is well worn..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Boy are you naive...
I don't know how old you are but have you heard of the Pentagon Papers? Do you honestly think that was the one and only time ever that acting leaders thought it would be a good idea to withhold facts to get public support and backing for their "agenda"? How about the drug war or weapons of mass destruction? Let me guess.. you agree that random searches should be legal because only those with something legal would object.
AND it's paying for your enormous deficit, which is likely to bankrupt US pretty soon..
Ok, you've got two unwinnable wars, then what?
The US went bankrupt many years ago. Why do you think all the gold was confiscated back in 1933
http://www.the-privateer.com/1933-gold-confiscation.html
and Nixon took the USD completely off the gold standard?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock
You only resort to these extreme measures if you have a negative ROI. If you have sustained negative ROI, that's actually worse than actual bankruptcy, which is an admission that you failed and promise to restructure. Nope, the rampant spending continues, and the fiat money flows. The broken system becomes even more broken, as fiscal fantasy becomes even more out of line with fiscal reality.
That party cannot continue forever, I don't think.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
I'm sorry, before I can take your post seriously, I require full disclosure, in the form of all of your personal information, Anonymous Coward.
Please submit it for open discussion, and then we can continue talking about how the only way to discuss anything is with all information being freely available to the public.
I mean, fair is fair, right?
Because you can't read the damned book. God.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"
Amazon's Statement - I went to Amazon to see if it was still available. Here was their statement about the book: "Important Message for Customers - On Friday, August 13, 2010, just as St. Martin’s Press was readying its initial shipment of Operation Dark Heart, the Department of Defense expressed concern that its publication could cause damage to U.S. national security. The publication of the initial edition was canceled. However, after consulting with the author, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, St. Martin's Press agreed to incorporate some of the government’s changes, which includes redacting classified text, into a revised edition, which is releasing on September 24. "
As a correction, it appears that what you are saying is that the government went broke in 1933, and it's been getting worse ever since. It's not the case; there have been times since then that the fiscal outlook was really good for the country. Of course, give politicians money and they will spend it. But you can't look at the 1933 gold confiscation and say it is responsible for the current government problems, anymore than you can say the 1930s depression is responsible for the current recession. And you can't say that unless you completely ignore history.
Qxe4
The government does not have their 'own' resources. The government deciding to do a book burning is basically censorship very similar to the church buying up bibles in the Middle Ages to burn them.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
"Thank you for giving us a green light to print money, Pentagon." --The Publishers
Yes, it is called "voluntary" censorship, and worked very well for many years in the Soviet Union where famous authors would hide or modify their manuscripts for publishing.
It was derided and criticized by the West all along, and many books that were "unpublishable" in the USSR in their "unabridged" format were moved to the West and printed there.
Considering how easy it was to leak several years of electronic communications, maybe you're doing it already ;)
The first printing was so popular, we're going to crank out another 100K pronto!
Have gnu, will travel.
16365 James Madison Highway Gordonsville, VA 22942-8501 It would be a shame if that warehouse accidentally got burglarized and the book published online.
1. Write book the military doesn't want seen in public
2. Publish
3. Let Pentagon buy up entire printing
4. Keep making more printings for them to buy
5. PROFIT!!!
-- QED
Damn right. You are "censoring" information you deem "inappropriate" for your audience. "Censorship is the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body." "When a publisher comes under pressure to suppress a book, but has already entered into a contract with the author, they will sometimes effectively censor the book by deliberately ordering a small print run and making minimal, if any, attempts to publicize it. This practice became known in the early 2000s as privishing."
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"
"Wait, you mean that asking an author to not print something, getting that author's agreement, and then paying for the printing cost of books that had the material the author agreed to remove is censorship?"
(the music from The Godfather sounds)
I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.
Personally I believe the only way forward is for ALL drugs to be legal, and here is why: I'm sorry if I don't get this quote right, or if I attribute it to the wrong person,(I believe it was from William F. Buckley Jr) but it really helped explain it simply..."If I put a bottle on a table with a skull and crossbones on it, and I say to you "This is poison, it will destroy your health, marriage, family, and finally kill you" and you push past me and down the bottle? STUPID YOU! Why should I have to saddle MY family and MY country with billions in debt and taxes to build cages and armed guards around that bottle?"
As for TFA, frankly with the amount of pure bald faced lies we have seen coming from the military (we're winning? civilian deaths are low! the government there works!) I wouldn't trust them to tell me water was wet if it was raining on my head.If you want people to support you then you have to stop CONSTANTLY LYING. So until they do a 180 on their current SOP I'm gonna have to vote for them being lying scumbags and call this censorship. After all, if you go ahead and trust the person of has repeatedly lied to you over and over and over again, who is the fool?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I gather you don't really quite understand how society works. "Stupid You" if you take the drugs right? I think we both agree. But, how many stupids are there in the world? How many people exist that are too immature and not evolved enough to have the sense not to swallow the entire content? Who pays to clean up that mess? I can understand moderation - but our newspapers are littered with stories of people who don't do moderation.
Which is cheaper - the army surrounding the bottle, or paying to have a support net to catch the stupid when they fall?
For as long as I exist, I have to depend on others doing the right thing just to stay alive, all of us do. Mostly this works out pretty well given average life spans and such. You are honestly suggesting we legalize all drugs? No controls at all? What about the medical profession, prescriptions exist for good reason, far more than just limiting supply to drug users.
I'll side with you as soon as you can eliminate society from your equation.
Our current state secrets regime is based on a Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds, which protected Boeing from revealing information regarding the deaths of three engineers in a plane crash because it would endanger national security. From the blurb for Claim of Privilege:
In other words, the very case that gave us the state secrets BS that Obama is latching on to harder than Bush II, was based on a COVERUP of NEGLIGENCE, not for any actual national security reasons. Boeing and the Air Force killed these smart geeks, and then LIED to protect their ass. That's what the state secrets doctrine is about -- it isn't about protecting anyone but the fuckwads ruining our country. Wake up already.
You can also listen to the TAL report, it is the second story.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
whoa, whoa, whoa! so i was involuntarily entered into a contract whereby "the nation" gains wealth from the sweat of my brow, because they shoved some paperwork under my mom's nose when i was born and told her to sign it? that seems a little shady, wouldn't you say?
also, it seems to me like gold isn't so worthless after all. as a matter of fact, it's been so stable over time that many investors maintain it as a hedge in case fiat currencies fail.
do not read this line twice.
The issue is, of course, that the publisher paid to have a first run done. Would rather suck if they couldn't sell any of those. It would be a big sunk cost. Never mind if the government would even have the authority to tell them not to sell it, it would be a really dick move, one that would hurt the publisher. So the government instead said "We'll just buy up the entire production run. You agree to sell them to nobody else, we take all of them and destroy them, you go ahead with the 2nd edition with our blessing." Government is happy, they got the names redacted. Publisher is happy, they didn't lose money. Life is good.
...if the entire first printing sells out almost immediately (Regardless of the reason), doesn't that pretty much ensure it will get another printing?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Indeed, the 'state secret' privilege is an entire fraud, as is 95% of the stuff we have classified.
The only thing the government should be able to keep secret are future or active military operations, still-living intelligent assets, and some stuff like military blueprints and things.
There is no military operation older than a month in the past that should be kept secret. What, are our enemies using carrier snails? I think they've pretty much figured out what happened. All reports generated should be public, period.
There will be moron who talk about classified 'tactics' and crap. They're lying. Our military has no secret skills that let them do things. Ask a soldier. There's stuff they don't want to talk about in advance, before the enemy figures out they can do it, but once you start doing things in a war, um, duh, the enemy knows it.
No, the reason the military keeps operations secret is not a damn thing to do with tactics, which the enemy can figure out pretty easily. It's to do with the fact the military makes blunt statements about innocents getting killed, and, um, the public doesn't like that.
Yes, the military would not, due to public pressure, be able to fight any recent wars if everything it did was open to the public...and that's a good thing. If the public doesn't like an action the government does, perhaps the government shouldn't fucking do it. Not speak vaguely about what it does and pretend everything is some huge important secret.
Now, I'll agree that sometimes we do need to keep secrets that are outside that. For example, perhaps we have evidence some Russia diplomat is selling nuclear secrets to Iran, and the CIA shoots him. Well, okay, we don't want that public, okay. Not to keep it from Russia, who probably figured it out, but to keep it officially from Russia.
But if there's something like that that does need to be kept secret, it should have to go through a fucking closed session of Congress and specifically be classified that way. No, not 'notify' half a dozen people, and threaten them if they tell anyone, the congress should actually vote on it, or decide to just tell everyone. Giving the damn branch of government, hell, the specific group that did it, the power to classify it, is utterly absurd. And it's doubly absurd to let them assert they have a right to keep it secret in court.
Granted, this incident seems pretty reasonable. This isn't the government keeping anything secret, but working with a publisher and author to voluntarily keep information secret. The problem isn't the 'secret' stuff we hear about.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
But, how many stupids are there in the world? How many people exist that are too immature and not evolved enough to have the sense not to swallow the entire content? Who pays to clean up that mess?
The consumers can pay for it, by way of a tax on the drugs, like they already do for tobacco and alcohol.
You are honestly suggesting we legalize all drugs? No controls at all?
I'm not him, but I think that's the right idea. The problems caused by prohibition far outweigh the problems caused by the drugs themselves.
What about the medical profession, prescriptions exist for good reason, far more than just limiting supply to drug users.
Such as?
I'm having a hard time thinking of a good reason to require prescriptions for anything except antibiotics (since improper use can create resistant strains).
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
In my opinion, a big part of problem with the war on drugs (and abstinence only education as well) is that the people who support the lies become invested in them... Financially to be sure, but intellectually and emotionally more so.
For some, it's cognitive dissonance and for other's it's reputation.For the emotional, there's such a belief in the lies told about drug use, and they are so heavily invested in those beliefs that it's impossible for them to truly consider alternatives. For the more rational supporters of prohibition, they've put so much of their reputation on the line, that it's nearly impossible for them to back off and admit that they spread misinformation, and wasted billions upon billions of dollars, ruined lives, and manipulated everyone over this issue.
I personally suspect that drug prohibition will end in two stages... The first will be for a vocal group to really put the message out there, and to educate the public that legalization, while not perfect, would be a significant improvement over prohibition. This group needs to convince people that lies are not education, and that truth and reality are far more effective messages against drugs than scare tactics and misinformation.
The second stage will be the rotation of those invested in prohibition out of power, which IMO will happen naturally - no one's going to be forced out of government due to an anti drug position, but they are going to eventually retire. It may take many years, but as those who grew up with a drug education take positions in government.
Gay rights is a similar issue... It's been pointed out that gay marriage has overwhelming support from my generation (people younger than their mid 30s) and that it's really only a question of who will legalize gay marriage... Do those in power want to go down in history for supporting gay rights? Or do they want to wait another 30 years until my generation is in power to do it?
End rant...
If you get a security clearance, the documents you sign stipulate that anything you want to publish is subject to review before it can be released to the public.
And if you had a "writer" clearance in the SU - a membership to the Writers' Union (a professional organization of writers there) - you'd sign documents that stipulated your work is subject to editorial review before it could be released to the public. It was considerably more difficult to get a book out "officially" without such membership.
You can see how similar is this in form to what the Pentagon is doing. One difference is that publication money was never an issue, as the state was paying all the bills anyway. ;)
And Soviet authors participated in "voluntary" censorship to the extent that they criticized their leadership & oligarchs anyways through extensive and satirical allegory that could pass the censors' review without diluting the message.
First, there were no "oligarchs" in the Soviet era, there were Politburo members. The oligarchs are a new development.
Second, satirical allegory, especially extensive one, was allowed (or passed censorship) on very rare occasions. Most censorship violations happened when unapproved books were distributed by Samizdat (self-publishing).
Third, this is largely irrelevant to the question is voluntary censorship a censorship. I am not implying that censorship is necessarily bad, I am just answering GP's question with an example.
So, is what the Pentagon is doing a form of censorship? Yes, it is, no doubt about it.
The "good reason" was part of the AMA's campaign to eliminate competition during the early 1900's.
This long effort eliminated midwife home birthing in many states, prescriptions by pharmacists everywhere, and any other potential competition. Nothing like a monopoly to insure income.
Medicine in a business like any other and their lobbyists in the AMA delivered.
All under the guise of "professionalism" and think-of-the-lives-that-could-be-saved.
Control of all drugs through prescriptions was just part of the campaign. What became Big Pharma was one of their major allies.
You sound like an outsider so I will pose this response in as clear and of modern of times as possible.
The obsession with the constitution is because it's a document that gives the federal government it's power. The federal government was originally designed to simple be a common head of state and to settle matters between the states. The constitution is divided into 3 sections, 2 of which are basically the same. The first section described the only power the federal government has, the rest is left to the states and to the people where it respectfully belongs.
The second part is called the bill of rights, this is the original 10 amendment (there was 12 originally but 2 of them took several decades after the constitution was ratified by all the states to be passed). These bill of rights do not give anyone any rights, they expressly forbid the government of the US or it's states from taking inherent rights away from us. Then there are the amendments. These are all the amendments after the first 10 which has been made for whatever reason as society deemed necessary. It requires a good deal of support in order to get an amendment passed and there was actually two amendments that would/could be unconstitutional (depending on the date passed).
Now, how this all sorts together in modern times, support the EU became some massive monolithic organization that was imposing it's will on all the member countries. Some say it already is, but suppose that over the next couple of years, the EU government took control of all the military forces of it's member states, started declaring what kind of health care they could have, what kind of elections they could have, who could become citizens of the member states and so on. Also suppose they started taxing individuals within each member state. Now suppose a bunch of radicals decided it would be easier to change policy in England or France by simply passing laws in the EU which England and France were bound by.
So you might say, but that will never happen, their charter doesn't permit it. Then someone comes along and says "the EU charter was drafted decades ago, by people who lived decades ago, it means nothing today because thigns have changed and aren't the same. I don't care that there is an amendment process to change the charter- it's simply too hard to get 3/4 of the people to agree on what I see needs changed". Now do you see where this is going? If the document that limits the power of government over the people is ignored for your convenience, it can be ignored for anyone else'. So why is there a document that limits the power of a governing body in the first place? Well, because people thought it would be good to limit that governing body's power to avoid certain things. Now we have to get into the founding fathers to find out what those things were and if it's a good idea or not. And no, this isn't limited to just the US, any country that has a constitution or charter or even the EU has founding fathers who directed the organization of that country or governing body certain ways for certain reasons. If those r
I know you're trolling but I'll bite.
I'm not trolling, actually, but that's besides the point.
The US is no longer on the Gold standard because Gold is worthless.
Worthless? Really? Can I have your gold then? I watch the financial markets nearly every day and gold is anything but worthless.
What is valuable is debt aka IOUs or promissory notes aka US Dollars otherwise known as Government issued Reserve Notes. Debt is backed by labor or goods and services which have real intrinsic value.
Ah, see, you are proving my point already, but let's continue.
Gold is only useful in niche electronic components and fashion jewelry.
FYI Reserve Notes are backed by Birth Certificates which have an economic value of ~$750000 - $1000000 for the lifetime of the individual, which is how much that Citizen is expected to contribute to the national economy in their lifetime in labor, services, intellectual property, etc.
So us human citizens are being used as collateral for the debt! Ah, therein lies the rub! Unless you have infinite growth, this model fails. The planet is only so big, and there are only so many resources, places to live, farmland, etc. Population growth cannot continue to grow indefinitely -- it's mathematically impossible.
So now what happens when your assumptions of infinite growth are dashed to the hills? You have enslaved all of your citizens into paying off this debt, and you have to use force to "exact tribute " -- the IRS -- but now the bottom falls out because you hit zero population growth, or perhaps population begins to decline.
So now your creditors become restless and may wish to call back in the loan in full. Or drop you as a basis. Hello, what has China been doing recently? Making lots of noise about switching from the USD to some other standard for world currency -- like GOLD!
Why don't you explain to China and India how "worthless" gold is. Go ahead. I dare ya.
So to summarize we exchanged an economy backed by a semi-rare earth mineral for an economy backed by a population of contributing citizens and abstracted into a commodity by the vehicle of debt and debt reserve notes ( US Dollars).
To rephrase what you've just stated, "we" -- really the US government, not us -- took us off a solid standard with builtin accountability, sold us all out and decided to use you and me as collateral for a debt they keep running up, higher and deeper.
The wars fought today have nothing to do with "National Security" and everything to do with control of resources to keep the illusion going that the debt model will continue indefinitely -- which it will not.
You may love a world of debt servitude, but I do not. You and I did not choose to become debt slaves -- we were signed up for it at birth, and you fully admit it.
So thank you for making my point for me. I couldn't have said it better myself!!!!!
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies